November 30, 2023
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LITIGATION TRACKER ... Trump Trials Clearinghouse
https://www.justsecurity.org/88175/trump-trials-clearinghouse
THE WEEK'S BEST QUOTES. . .
From Liz Cheney’s new book, “Oath and Honor.” https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/28/politics/liz-cheney-trump-mccarthy-book
"Trump has the simplest campaign pitch in the world:
1) Things were good when I was president.
2) Everything went to hell when Joe Biden became president.
3) Elect me and I'll make things good again.
That's the whole campaign which, for now, it is clearly resonating with many voters." — Byron York https://twitter.com/ByronYork/status/1727507506631528825
“We had a couple of Republican Senators who campaigned for 6 years against it, and then raised their hands not to terminate it. It was a low point for the Republican Party, but we should never give up!” — Trump who says he is “seriously looking at alternatives” to the Affordable Care Act if he returns to the White House. https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111471975032811076
“Take it seriously… This is what authoritarians do. This is what fascists do.” — Presidential historian Michael Beschloss on Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/michael-beschloss-donald-trump-second-term_n_6565a0fae4b05f498ba1b36d
Fox News correspondent @LucasFoxNews reports that Biden "continues to face questions about his age, even here in Nantucket" -- citing nothing more than a question @LucasFoxNews himself shouted at Biden on Saturday. The epitome of astroturfing a political attack. https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1728803183420387435
"The only thing that matters is winning.”— Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who was “dismissive” of the legal process for challenging the election results and “didn’t seem to think the rules mattered.”"These national polls are just ridiculous. There’s no reason to pay any attention to them. If Trump were to lose Iowa, for instance, or lose New Hampshire, those national polls would change in three days.” — Chris Christie, in an interview with The Dispatch. https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/dispatch-politics/chris-christie-predicts-political-fallout-for-trumps-trials/
“We just need to do this one last thing for Trump.” — Rep. Mike Johnson who pressured Republican members to support an amicus brief to throw out the election results from four states Trump had lost.
‘The things we do for the Orange Jesus.” — Republican Congressman Mark Green of Tennessee while signing his name on electoral vote objection sheet.
Liz Cheney: “Mar-a-Lago? What the hell, Kevin?”
Kevin McCarthy: “They’re really worried. Trump’s not eating, so they asked me to come see him.”
Liz Cheney: “What? You went to Mar-a-Lago because Trump’s not eating?”
Kevin McCarthy: “Yeah, he’s really depressed.”
“We may have disagreed on pretty much everything else, but Nancy Pelosi and I saw eye to eye on the one thing that mattered more than any other: the defense of our Constitution and the preservation of our republic.”
“We have also now learned that most Republicans currently in Congress will do what Donald Trump asks, no matter what it is. II am very sad to say that America can no longer count on a body of elected Republicans to protect our republic.”
"Trump has the simplest campaign pitch in the world:
1) Things were good when I was president.
2) Everything went to hell when Joe Biden became president.
3) Elect me and I'll make things good again.
That's the whole campaign which, for now, it is clearly resonating with many voters." — Byron York https://twitter.com/ByronYork/status/1727507506631528825
“We had a couple of Republican Senators who campaigned for 6 years against it, and then raised their hands not to terminate it. It was a low point for the Republican Party, but we should never give up!” — Trump who says he is “seriously looking at alternatives” to the Affordable Care Act if he returns to the White House. https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111471975032811076
“Take it seriously… This is what authoritarians do. This is what fascists do.” — Presidential historian Michael Beschloss on Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/michael-beschloss-donald-trump-second-term_n_6565a0fae4b05f498ba1b36d
VIDEOS ...
“I think it is time for a cease-fire." — Senator Durbin becomes the first US Senator to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1720094214061703298Fox News correspondent @LucasFoxNews reports that Biden "continues to face questions about his age, even here in Nantucket" -- citing nothing more than a question @LucasFoxNews himself shouted at Biden on Saturday. The epitome of astroturfing a political attack. https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1728803183420387435
IN THIS ISSUE
IN THE NEWS
OPINION
| IN THE NEWS... |
Some Republicans Were Willing to Compromise on Abortion Ban Exceptions. Activists Made Sure They Didn’t.
ProPublica reviewed 12 of the nation’s strictest abortion bans and found few changed in 2023, as state lawmakers caved to pressure from anti-abortion groups opposing exceptions for rape, incest and health risks.And the human toll has become clear.
On the floors of state legislatures over the past year, doctors detailed the risks their pregnant patients have faced when forced to wait to terminate until their health deteriorated. Women shared their trauma. Some Republican lawmakers even promised to support clarifications.
But so far, few efforts to add exceptions to the laws have succeeded.
A review by ProPublica of 12 of the nation’s strictest abortion bans passed before Roe was overturned found that over the course of the 2023 legislative session, only four states made changes. Those changes were limited and steered by religious organizations. None allowed doctors to provide abortions to patients who want to terminate their pregnancies because of health risks. https://www.propublica.org/article/abortion-ban-exceptions-trigger-laws-health-risks
Trump Rallies Aren’t Even Really About Politics at This Point
For all of Donald Trump’s rhetorical innovations, personality quirks, and alleged criminal malfeasance, what has made him truly unique as a political figure is how much he has merged fan culture with American politics. It’s not unusual for Americans to idolize presidents—Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama are still actively revered by many—but no other president has inspired the same level of merchandise lines or themed car flags. A MAGA bumper sticker often isn’t simply a statement of loyalty; it’s a cultural signifier of community much like the dancing bear bumper sticker is for a Grateful Dead fan.
Nowhere is this more clear than at Trump’s rallies. He’s turned his campaign events into something that has more in common with a Bruce Springsteen concert than a Harry Truman whistle-stop tour. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/11/trump-rallies-2024-presidential-campaign-biden-desantis-haley.html
Nate Cohn: Why Biden’s Weakness Among Young Voters Should Be Taken Seriously
Could President Biden and Donald Trump really be locked in a close race among young voters — a group Democrats typically carry by double digits — as the recent Times/Siena polls suggest?To many of our readers and others, it’s a little hard to believe — so hard to believe that it seems to them the polls are flat-out wrong.
Of course, it’s always possible that the polls are wrong. I’ve thought our own polling might be wrong before, and I would be very apprehensive if it were just our poll out on a limb. But this isn’t about one Times/Siena poll: Virtually every poll shows a close race between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump among young voters.
When dozens of polls all say the same thing, it’s worth taking the polling seriously. It’s easy to remember that the polling can be wrong, but it can be easy to forget that the polling is usually in the ballpark. It’s a losing game to dismiss all polling simply because it doesn’t comport with expectations. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/27/upshot/poll-biden-young-voters.html
Jewish Democrats Rebuke GOP Bill to Expel Palestinians
A pair of Jewish House Democrats is introducing a resolution on Tuesday condemning a Republican bill to expel Palestinians from the U.S.While lawmakers often condemn or censure each other for controversial rhetoric, it’s rare for legislation to spark a formal rebuke.
The two-page resolution, a copy of which was first shared with Axios, is being introduced by Reps. Greg Landsman (D-OH) and Dan Goldman (D-NY), both of whom are Jewish and steadfastly pro-Israel. https://www.axios.com/2023/11/28/jewish-democrats-zinke-bill-expel-palestinians
The Politics of Trying to Impeach Biden
For months, GOP leadership had resisted this move, insisting a full vote on the House floor wasn’t necessary to probe whether Biden committed impeachable offenses. But as the inquiry enters a new phase focused on trying to pry documents from the White House under subpoena, top House Republicans seem to be realizing that the legal heft of a vote to authorize an inquiry will be crucial.Yet whether House Republicans can muscle through an impeachment inquiry vote is still up in the air. There are 18 GOP lawmakers in districts that Biden won in 2020. It’s not guaranteed this measure will pass.
And yes, the president is pretty unpopular. But Congress is more unpopular. And House Republicans have pretty much failed to do anything beyond the bare minimum of keeping the federal government open and not defaulting on the national debt. Impeaching Biden may play to base voters, but it’s not going to help the vulnerable Republicans that much, especially since there’s no way the Democratic-run Senate will support his removal from office. https://punchbowl.news/
Most GOP Senators Silent on Endorsing Trump
Many Republicans who supported Trump in his two previous presidential campaigns believe he has already clinched the GOP nomination for president, given his commanding lead in the polls, and they say there’s no need for them to endorse him.So far, only 13 of the 49 Republican senators on Capitol Hill have officially announced their endorsement of Trump. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/endorsing-trump-republican-senators/
White House Grapples with Internal Divisions on Israel
Earlier this month, a group of about 20 distressed White House staffers requested a meeting with President Biden’s top advisers, as Israel’s war in Gaza entered its sixth week.The diverse group of staffers had three main issues they wanted to discuss with White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, senior adviser Anita Dunn and deputy national security adviser Jon Finer: They wanted to know the administration’s strategy for curbing the number of civilian deaths, the message it plans to send on the conflict and its postwar vision for the region. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/26/biden-white-house-divisions-israel-gaza/
The 2024 Interactive electoral Map
This interactive electoral map showcases the latest consensus forecast for the 2024 presidential election. https://electoralvotemap.com/Johnson’s Release of Jan. 6 Video Feeds Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories
Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to publicly release thousands of hours of Capitol security footage from Jan. 6, 2021, has fueled a renewed effort by Republican lawmakers and far-right activists to rewrite the history of the attack that day and exonerate the pro-Trump rioters who took part, the New York Times reports.Mr. Johnson’s move last week to make the footage available — something the far right has long demanded — came as he tried to allay the anger of hard-line Republican lawmakers for working with Democrats to keep the government funded. Now, some of the same people who were irate about that decision are using the Jan. 6 video to circulate an array of false claims and conspiracy theories about the largest attack on the Capitol in centuries. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/23/us/politics/mike-johnson-jan-6-video.html
The House GOP’s Abortion Rights Conundrum
Here’s a blunt reality that isn’t being heard loud enough in the conservative-dominated House Republican Conference — the party’s majority makers think their leadership is screwing up on abortion.Center-right lawmakers representing swing districts from New York to California are sounding the alarm that their party’s strategy on abortion rights has backfired. These vulnerable Republicans — who hold districts that President Joe Biden won in 2020 — told us the GOP needs to be more mindful about how it talks about abortion in the run-up to the 2024 election. https://punchbowl.news/archive/112223-punchbowl-news-am/
Trump’s pardon of drug dealer sabotaged major criminal investigation
Donald Trump’s pardon of loan shark Jonathan Braun on his last day in office in 2021 “destroyed” a Department of Justice investigation, according to a New York Timesreport.Braun was convicted of running an illegal marijuana cartel. He was one of the 142, including rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black, who were issued surprise pardons by Mr Trump in the waning hours of his presidency.
At the time of his pardon, Braun had served a quarter of his ten-year sentence.
The commutation of his sentence reportedly dealt a “substantial blow” to the Justice Department’s criminal investigation that was aimed at members of the predatory lending industry who harmed small businesses.
The New York Times report added that the commutation “destroyed” any leverage the government had in the investigation. https://www.aol.com/trump-pardon-drug-dealer-sabotaged-074846649.html
Dean Phillips supporters launch ads attacking Biden’s electability
A new super PAC supporting the presidential campaign of Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) released a series of television ads Tuesday that directly challenge the electability of President Biden, the Washington Post reports.Some of the spots — which will initially run in New Hampshire and the Washington area — compare Biden’s campaign to a burning dynamite fuse overlaid on news headlines about his struggles and recent polling results showing him trailing former president Donald Trump. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/21/dean-phillips-joe-biden-ads/
Nevada Judge Strikes Down Abortion Petition
A Nevada judge turned down a ballot measure that would have constitutionally protected abortion rights in the state, calling the amendment overly broad, KOLA reports. https://politicalwire.com/page/2/Donor allegedly offered $20M to recruit a Tlaib primary challenger
A Michigan businessman called Democratic Senate candidate Hill Harper to offer $20 million in campaign contributions if he agreed to drop out and instead mount a primary challenge to Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Politico reports.
The source added that Harper declined the alleged Oct. 16 offer from donor Linden Nelson — which would have split the campaign money between $10 million in bundled contributions directly to Harper’s campaign and $10 million in independent expenditures. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/22/donor-20-million-tlaib-primary-00128443
Mirror Sites Help Russia Evade Sanctions
The European Union promised to shut down the flow of Vladimir Putin’s propaganda after Russia invaded Ukraine, slapping sanctions on state-backed media RT and Sputnik days after the attack.
Nearly two years into the war, the Kremlin appears to have the last laugh. RT.com may be inaccessible in the EU, but a series of less popular mirror sites provides the same content, aimed at undermining the bloc’s support of Ukraine. One is swentr.site, or RT News in reverse. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-23/ukraine-war-how-kremlin-propaganda-websites-dodge-disinformation-sanctions
Trump’s Kids Took Out $22 Million in Home Loans
Donald Trump’s children — Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Ivanka Trump — took out over $22 million in loans over the past few years to pay for luxury homes in Florida. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12748147/Ivanka-Trump-Jared-Kushner-siblings-hefty-mortgages-Florida-properties-Indian-Creek-mansion.htmlTrump hints at expanded role for the military within the US. A legacy law gives him few guardrails
Campaigning in Iowa this year, Donald Trump said he was prevented during his presidency from using the military to quell violence in primarily Democratic cities and states.
Said Trump: The next time, I’m not waiting. One of the things I did was let them run it and we’re going to show how bad a job they do. Well, we did that. We don’t have to wait any longer.
Trump has not spelled out precisely how he might use the military during a second term, although he and his advisers have suggested they would have wide latitude to call up units. While deploying the military regularly within the country’s borders would be a departure from tradition, the former president already has signaled an aggressive agenda if he wins, from mass deportations to travel bans imposed on certain Muslim-majority countries. https://apnews.com/article/trump-military-insurrection-act-2024-election-03858b6291e4721991b5a18c2dfb3c36
Elon Musk boosts Pizzagate conspiracy theory that led to D.C. gunfire
Elon Musk voiced support Tuesday for Pizzagate, the long-debunked conspiracy theory that led a man to fire a rifle inside a Washington, D.C., restaurant in 2016.The far-right theory, a predecessor to QAnon, alleged that the Clintons and Democratic Party leaders ran a secret satanic child sex ring in a D.C. pizzeria known as Comet Ping Pong.
The theory, a mainstay of fringe Donald Trump supporters during the 2016 presidential campaign, was labeled “fictitious” by D.C. police investigators.
Musk’s post was the latest in what has become a string of tweets in which Musk boosted debunked theories and comes just one day after he visited Israel to try to tamp down anger over an explosion of antisemitism on X that has caused a growing number of advertisers to flee. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/28/pizzagate-musk-twitter-x-controversy/
Mike Lee Admits Rioter Was Not a Federal Agent
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) acknowledged that it probably wasn’t a federal agent disguised as a Donald Trump supporter in a picture he posted last week, the HuffPost reports.NBC News identified the man as Kevin Lyons, who in July was sentenced to four years in prison for his actions that day. https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/1726294317113700546
THE DAILY GRILL
"This Thanksgiving, as Jill and I reflect on our nation's many blessings, we are thankful for our brave service members and the first responders who put so much on the line to keep us safe today and every day." — President Joe Biden’s Thanksgiving message. https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1727718786386579775
VERSUS
"Happy Thanksgiving to ALL, including the Racist & Incompetent Attorney General of New York State, Letitia 'Peekaboo' James, who has let Murder & Violent Crime FLOURISH, & Businesses FLEE; the Radical Left Trump Hating Judge, a 'Psycho,' Arthur Engoron, who Criminally Defrauded the State of New York, & ME, by purposely Valuing my Assets at a 'tiny' Fraction of what they are really worth in order to convict me of Fraud before even a Trial, or seeing any PROOF, & used his Politically Biased & Corrupt Campaign Finance Violator, Chief Clerk Alison Greenfield, to sit by his side on the 'Bench' & tell him what to do; & Crooked Joe Biden, who has WEAPONIZED his Department of Injustice against his Political Opponent, & allowed our Country to go to HELL; & all of the other Radical Left Lunatics, Communists, Fascists, Marxists, Democrats, & RINOS, who are seriously looking to DESTROY OUR COUNTRY. Have no fear, however, we will WIN the Presidential Election of 2024, & MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!" — Donald Trump’s unhinged Thanksgiving message posted on Truth Social. https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/111458584765047772
| OPINION |
Sean Trende: Not Only Can Trump Win, Right Now He's the Favorite To Win
As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. Elections analysts seem to know that they are obliged to mouth the words that Trump can win, but deep down, they don’t believe them. The notion that Biden is the favorite is deeply internalized, likely for a variety of reasons.
“So let us set the record straight: Trump can win. Not in a ‘maybe if all the stars align and then Russia changes the vote totals (even somehow in states like Michigan that use hand-marked paper ballots)’ kind of way. Just flat out: Trump can win.”
“As of this writing, Trump leads Biden by 2.6 percentage points nationally in the RealClearPolitics Average. This is Trump’s largest lead in the RCP average to date. Not for 2024, mind you. Ever.” https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/11/28/no_really_biden_is_in_trouble_against_trump.html
Peter Wehner: Have You Listened Lately to What Trump Is Saying?
Trump’s rhetoric is a permission slip for his supporters to dehumanize others just as he does. He portrays others as existential threats, determined to destroy everything MAGA world loves about America. Trump is doing two things at once: pushing the narrative that his enemies must be defeated while dissolving the natural inhibitions most human beings have against hating and harming others. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/trump-becoming-frighteningly-clear-about-what-he-wants/676086/
Thomas B. Edsall: The Roots of Trump’s Rage
Brian Klaas, a political scientist at University College London, captured the remarkable nature of the 2024 presidential election in an Oct. 1 essay, The Case for Amplifying Trump’s Insanity.Klaas argued that the presidential contest now pits a 77-year-old racist, misogynist bigot who has been found liable for rape, who incited a deadly, violent insurrection aimed at overturning a democratic election, who has committed mass fraud for personal enrichment, who is facing 91 separate counts of felony criminal charges against him and who has overtly discussed his authoritarian strategies for governing if he returns to power against an 80-year-old with mainstream Democratic Party views who sometimes misspeaks or trips.
One of those two candidates, Klaas noted, faces relentless newspaper columns and TV pundit ‘takes’ arguing that he should drop out of the race. (Spoiler alert: It’s somehow not the racist authoritarian sexual abuse fraudster facing 91 felony charges.)
Klaas asked: "What is going on? How is it possible that the leading candidate to become president of the United States can float the prospect of executing a general and the media response is … crickets?"
How is it possible that it’s not front page news when a man who soon may return to power calls for law enforcement to kill people for minor crimes? And why do so few people question Trump’s mental acuity rather than Biden’s, when Trump proposes delusional, unhinged plans for forest management and warns his supporters that Biden is going to lead us into World War II (which would require a time machine), or wrongly claims that he defeated Barack Obama in 2016?
In Klaas’s view, newspapers and television have succumbed to what he called the banality of crazy, ignoring even the most dangerous policy proposals by an authoritarian who is on the cusp of once again becoming the most powerful man in the world — precisely because it happens, like clockwork, almost every day.
A recent editorial in The Economist carried the headline Donald Trump Poses the Biggest Danger to the World in 2024. A second Trump term, the editorial concluded: would be a watershed in a way the first was not. Victory would confirm his most destructive instincts about power. His plans would encounter less resistance. And because America will have voted him in while knowing the worst, its moral authority would decline. The election will be decided by tens of thousands of voters in just a handful of states. In 2024 the fate of the world will depend on their ballots.
Klaas of University College London concluded that a crucial factor in Trump’s political survival is the failure of the media in this country to recognize that the single most important story in the presidential election, a story that should dominate all others, is the enormous threat Trump poses:
The man who, as president, incited a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol in order to overturn an election is again openly fomenting political violence while explicitly endorsing authoritarian strategies should he return to power. That is the story of the 2024 election. Everything else is just window dressing. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/opinion/trump-danger-rage-psychology.html
Gerald Seib: Trump’s Big Advantages as the Election Year Unfolds
Since the last presidential campaign, former President Donald Trump has complained repeatedly that the political system is ‘rigged’ against him. As the 2024 election season draws near, the system actually does appear to be rigged—in his favor.The current structure of U.S. presidential elections helps the leading Republican presidential contender in significant ways. Thanks in part to years of work by the former president’s campaign and allies, the party’s primary rules and calendar are designed to help a front-runner sew up the nomination quickly. That would be an advantage in any case, but it may matter even more in a year when Trump’s legal troubles in multiple civil and criminal trials could mount as the primary calendar unfolds.
In the general election, the Electoral College also tilts decidedly to the benefit of the Republican nominee. That’s because Democrats gather a lot of their national popular-vote totals in just a few heavily populated states, while Republican nominees tend to win in less-populous states that deliver winner-take-all electoral votes in return for far fewer actual votes. https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trumps-big-advantages-as-the-election-year-unfolds-cca11d29
Olivia Nuzzi: The Mind-Bending Politics of RFK Jr.’s Spoiler Campaign
Kennedy’s chill disposition is now the rest of the political world’s simmering panic attack. Since announcing in October that he would end his campaign for the Democratic nomination to officially become a problem for both major parties as an independent, fear — and denial — is what Kennedy seems to inspire among the staid Washington Establishment supporting the incumbent president and the gangland anti-Establishment Establishment supporting the former president. Officials from both party apparatuses are certainly looking at metrics that confirm Kennedy is turning the presidential election upside down.At this point, all that’s clear is that no one has any idea what will happen between now and November 2024 or how to respond to the threat Kennedy poses to the Biden-Trump binary. As it is, Kennedy is in some cases polling not far behind either likely major-party nominee and in all cases polling well enough that, were the election held today, his presence in the race would define what the next chapter of American history looks like. As he put it, ‘My intention is to spoil it for both of them.’ https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/robert-f-kennedy-jr-2024-presidential-campaign-politics.html
Kyle Chayka: Elon Musk’s Poisoned Platform
Last Wednesday, an account on X named @breakingbaht posted a message that read, Jewish communties [sic] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them. The post went on to espouse a line of conspiratorial thinking that is sometimes called the great replacement theory, suggesting that Jews were driving hordes of minorities to supplant white people. @breakingbaht has less than six thousand followers, and the account’s casual, blatant antisemitism might easily have passed with little notice. Since Elon Musk’s acquisition of X last October, the company has slashed its content-moderation staff, and countless virulent posts proliferate daily. This time, though, Musk himself replied, telling @breakingbaht, You have said the actual truth.Musk often posts on X upward of a dozen times a day, to more than a hundred and sixty-three million followers, and he had expressed shades of antisemitism and racism repeatedly on the platform before. But this time, amid a brutal Israel-Hamas war, with antisemitism and Islamophobia inflamed around the world, he seemed to have finally crossed a line. On Thursday, the watchdog group Media Matters published a report showing that the ads of major corporations were appearing on X alongside antisemitic material. On Friday, a statement from the White House called Musk’s remark unacceptable, and major advertisers, including I.B.M., Disney, and the European Union, began suspending their purchases on the platform. Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th and the ensuing war, antisemitism has been surging on X; according to Memetica, a digital investigations firm, the hashtag #hitlerwasright has appeared forty-six thousand times since October 7th, compared with fewer than five thousand times per month previously. Far from combatting the ballooning hatred on his platform, Musk was openly amplifying it. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/elon-musks-poisoned-platform
Serge Schmemann: It Is No Longer Possible to Escape What We Have Done to Ourselves
This has been the summer from climate hell all across Earth, when it ceased being possible to escape or deny what we have done to our planet and ourselves. Even I am surprised by this year, said Michael Flannigan, a professor at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia, who has been studying the interaction of fire and climate for over 35 years. Temperatures are rising at the rate we thought they would, but the effects are more severe, more frequent, more critical. It’s crazy and getting crazier.The planet had its hottest week ever in July and is entering uncharted territory, the World Meteorological Organization declared. Maui, the loveliest of Hawaii islands, was savaged by a wildfire that killed more than 100 people and destroyed the picturesque town of Lahaina. Floods battered New England; a reading of 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit (the ideal temperature for a hot tub) was recorded in the waters of Manatee Bay in South Florida. China had its heaviest rains in 140 years; record wildfires devastated Greek islands, and the list goes on. None of it is normal. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/opinion/canada-wildfires-climate-change.html